


Amongst the Orchids

by DoreyG



Category: Original Work, Regency Original Work
Genre: First Meetings, Flirting, Gardens & Gardening, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25786081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: The greenhouse was dark and cool, and he couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him and blocked some of the music and chatter out.
Relationships: Rake/Confused Gardener
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23
Collections: The Prince Regent's Birthday Regency/Victorian Flash Exchange





	Amongst the Orchids

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



It was late and he knew very well that he should’ve been sensibly asleep in his bed instead of tramping all over the place, but the music from the main house was loud and his mind was unfortunately alive with ideas despite the late hour. The greenhouse was dark and cool, and he couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him and blocked some of the music and chatter out.

Lord Cole, his employer, was a man possessed of both incredible amounts of money and impressive amounts of sense. He wanted his house, and specifically the green area that he’d designed at the heart of it to please his wife, to look pretty but acknowledged that he didn’t quite have the expertise to do so and thus gave his fortunate gardener free reign. As such every part of this greenhouse had been deliberately shaped by his hand, and felt like home as a result. He felt more and more of the tension leaving him as he tightened his dressing gown and moved deeper into the space. There were the black-eyed susans that he’d nursed since his earliest days in the house, there was the pineapple tree that he was attempting to encourage despite all barriers in the way, there was the special orchid that he’d planted just for himself and tended much as other people would tend their lapdogs or pampered kittens…

There was the man standing by his orchid, dressed in black and with a pensive expression upon his overly handsome face.

His eyes noticed the man before his body did, and so he got within touching distance before he finally became fully aware of what was going on. The moment he did he leapt back with a yelp, well aware that he was probably as red as the tomatoes he grew in Lord Cole’s kitchen garden and nowhere near as useful. “Oh!”

“My apologies.” The man looked amused, but not cruelly so. A wry smile curved his lips, in a way that - slightly unfairly considering his current state of disarray - only made him look all the more handsome. “I didn’t mean to startle you. To be honest, I didn’t expect anybody to be in here at this time of night.”

“Well, no, neither did I.” That was overly harsh, and it was never good to be overly harsh to well-dressed men. He drew in a deep breath, forced himself to straighten as he forced one of his ‘socially polite’ smiles onto his face. “I’m the one that should be sorry, sir. For disturbing your peace.”

“No, don’t call me ‘sir’. I’ve had enough of that all night. ‘Sir’ this and ‘sir’ that, and dropped fans and fluttered eyelashes and scandalized blushes and…” The man seemed to catch himself, narrowly, had to draw in a deep breath of his own before he could regain his charming smile. “I just needed a break, was all. To retire from the crush and just be myself for a while.”

He tongue moved ahead of him again, as it so often did. It was why, to tell truth, he significantly preferred plants to people. “You could’ve been yourself on the balcony, instead of coming in here.”

“I could’ve,” the man admitted, and actually laughed a little at his daring. Which was an entirely new experience that he had very little idea what to do with. “But nobody can see into here from the ballroom, and nobody can whisper - or what the ton currently terms as whispering, which seems to be the volume of a hearty shout - about what acts of villainy I’m planning out there.”

“Acts of-?” No, it was both ridiculous and rude to ask. He caught himself again, tried to fix an expression of mute obedience to his face while all the time knowing that he was probably failing utterly. “Again, I’m sorry. Both for interrupting you, and for challenging you. You are, of course, free to roam wherever you wish on Lord Cole’s estate. You are his guest, and it’s not for the likes of me to challenge you.”

“The likes of you?” The man looked him over, which made him flush violently again but for an entirely different reason this time. The fellow really was dashed handsome, such a pity he was wearing a fancy suit and talking with one of the less interesting varieties of plum in his mouth. “Pray tell, what makes a man like you any less worthy of respect than a man like me? You don’t know me very well, I admit, but please believe me when I say that I’m quite probably significantly worse than you in every way.”

He blinked in confusion, couldn’t quite help himself. “I’m-”

“Please don’t apologise again,” the man said, not unkindly. “If you do so then I will be forced to apologise again, which will trigger another apology from you, which will lead to an orgy of britishness that lasts all night and wastes even more of your valuable time. Let’s just say that I’m the only one who should be sorry, which I genuinely am, and leave it there.”

“But-” he stopped, frustrated, and narrowly resisted the urge to grind his teeth together. He never enjoyed his rare conversations with the aristocracy, not least because they looked at him like he was some fascinating variety of Delphinium, but at least they followed a set pattern. In this conversation he was as lost as his poor pineapple tree doubtlessly was. “I’m not really sure how to conduct a conversation with you otherwise, _Sir_.”

That bit of deliberate impertinence won him another smile, for some reason. The man turned away from him for a moment, seemingly to examine the space, before glancing back with that intent look in his eyes yet again. “You can call me Tom, if it’d be easier.”

“Sir,” he repeated, stubbornly.

“And there is no obligation to conduct a conversation with me. Or, indeed, to please me in any way,” the man - Tom, he reluctantly conceded - continued soothingly. “If you wish me to leave immediately, then I will accept it. If you wish to talk with me no more and go about your business in silence as I just sit here, then I will also accept that. If you wish to tell me about this fascinating space in more detail, then I will be utterly thrilled but also utterly willing to let you take the lead. It really is entirely up to you.”

A relatively polite dismissal was on the tip of his tongue, but for some reason he hesitated. By all rights he should’ve been jumping at the chance to kick an interloper out of his space, but… Tom had sounded genuinely interested, in a way that not even Lord Cole ever managed, when he’d asked for more information. “What do you want to know about the greenhouse?”

“Oh, anything you care to tell me,” Tom said cheerfully, and turned to wave - mercifully carefully - at the orchid that still sat before them. “Starting with this, perhaps. It’s a rather fine example of a Vanda Orchid, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I- yes,” he spluttered, and stepped forward eagerly. “ _Aerides ampullacea_ , to be exact, or at least that’s how Roxburgh termed it a few years back. Lord Cole’s oldest son brought several seeds back from the himalayas when he toured there, and I’ve been tending them ever since.”

“For multiple years, I’m guessing?” Tom asked, his eyes flashing not only with good humour buyt with obvious intelligence. The man had already been attractive before, in a way that his grandmother would’ve probably termed as sinful, but now he took on a whole extra dimension.

“About four or so, now,” he said, any attempt at reticence entirely forgotten. He had never met anybody this openly interested in plants before. The revelation made him feel slightly giddy. “She- It is probably my favourite flower in the entire greenhouse. I give her so little, and yet she rewards me with so much.”

“Mm,” Tom said thoughtfully, and he expected a slightly derisive comment in the pattern of the entire rest of his life when he’d tried to talk about plants. But instead Tom moved on, gently turned on his heel to regard the pineapple tree instead. “And I’m guessing that this fascinating sight is…”

The next couple of hours passed in a blur, the happiest blur that he’d ever experienced in his life. He described the pineapple tree to Tom, and why it was somewhat difficult to grow, and why he wanted to keep on trying anyway. He pointed out the Black Eyed Susans after that, and how they should best be tended, and how he felt the colours complimented the rest of the room. From there they moved on to the other flowers, the other shrubs, the other small trees that he’d planted to enrich his home. And every step of the way Tom listened, and smiled, and made thoughtful comments that made him feel truly seen for the first time in his life.

When the clock chimed midnight from the main house, loud enough for both of them to hear it, he startled so hard that he almost went face first into a patch of Columbines.

“Careful there,” Tom, who had actually rolled up the sleeves of his suit and was crouching on the ground next to him, reached out to steady him with warm hands and - unfortunately - let go of him the moment he righted himself. “Drat, it seems like we’ve both rather lost track of the time. I really should return to the ball, and face their speculation about my nefarious deeds afresh.”

“You don’t have to,” he protested, instead of the hundreds of questions he could’ve asked. Tom had proved himself a decent man, a good listener and an attentive student of plants, in the past two hours. He admittedly didn’t know the man very well outside of that, but the thought of him returning to such judgement didn’t sit well with him. “You could just stay here until morning, and sneak out with the last dregs. I wouldn’t mind.”

Tom looked like he wanted to say something at that, but again unfortunately restrained himself and only smiled instead. “A kind offer. But I promised myself that I’d stop running away from things this year, and I think that I’ve already drifted far too close to the mark in this case.”

“Well, if you’re sure-”

“Alas, yes.” Tom wiped his hands down his trousers, a quick movement that left barely noticeable trails of soil on the fine fabric, and rose neatly to his feet. When he was up he offered a hand down to him, which he accepted with a certain sense of shyness now that their dreamlike interlude was over. “Thank you for giving me the most enjoyable time I’ve had in months, and I mean that absolutely sincerely. Hopefully we’ll meet again some time, in more favourable circumstances than the middle of the night when I’m hiding from my responsibilities.”

Tom squeezed his hand for a moment, in what gentlemen not helplessly obsessed with plants over people tended to call a handshake, and then released and turned easily for the door.

He found himself calling out just before Tom reached the door. Knowing that he shouldn’t, but feeling the strange urge to dare again anyway. “What’s your full name, Tom?”

Tom paused for a second, just on the threshold, and then glanced back with a deliberately polite expression. He didn’t tend to notice much about people, had often been criticized for it by his family, but it was impossible not to notice that the tension had returned to Tom’s shoulders. “Thomas Alderbridge, Viscount Reading. Pleased to meet you.”

Thomas Alderbridge, Viscount Reading. He didn’t pay much attention to the nobility, beyond those he had to for reasons of employment, but even he had heard of Thomas Alderbridge, noted rake. Seducer of virgins, tumbler of widows, believer in strange and arcane arts. Had driven both of his parents into the grave by the time he’d turned thirty, and seemed on track to drive his older brother just as far by the time he hit forty.

Tom, the kind man with sparkling eyes who had seemed so very interested in his orchids and who had offered him a hand up from the floor.

“I’m Ben. Benedict Jones, at your service,” he said, knowing that it was barely a decision in the end, and summoned up a smile. He didn’t smile very often, not even for the people he loved, but a man like Tom seemed to deserve it. “You know, just so you can greet me properly the next time you’re lurking in my greenhouse in the middle of the night,”

Tom stared at him for a second, seemingly genuinely taken aback. And then smiled again, as radiant and honest as the sun this time, and tipped his head in a nod before sliding out of the door.


End file.
